This invention relates to patient monitoring devices such as used in hospitals and nursing homes and more particularly concerns a bed covering device adapted to detect movement and bedwetting by a patient resting thereupon.
It is common practice in hospitals and other health care facilities for nurses to check the condition of patients at regular intervals ranging typically between one and two hours. The nurse usually peers into the patient's room to observe whether or not the patient is sleeping, and whether any discomfort or serious medical problem exists. Due to increasingly large workloads of floor nurses, it is difficult for them to devote individualized attention to each patient. Between nurse visits, there may be periods where restlessness, discomfort, or physical distress of the patient go unnoticed.
The quality of sleep is often an important consideration in healthcare. A patient may tend to toss-and-turn more during the night due to physical discomfort, resulting in slower recovery or weakened condition. It is therefore desirable to more accurately monitor the movement of the patient upon the bed surface. A system for detecting and recording such movement would enable a nurse to more closely observe a patient's condition, administer medication and sedatives, and report such conditions to attending physicians.
In extreme cases, seriously ill patients can expire during the night and the attending nurse is not aware until the next "rounds" are made. Quite often immediate medical attention at the instant of trauma can save the patient's life. However, it is quite expensive and impractical to maintain a patient in an Intensive Care Unit on constant cardiac, respiratory, and other biological monitoring equipment. Many institutions are not equipped for such care on a routine basis. It is therefore desirable to provide a means for detecting the expiration of a patient and immediately alerting the nurse or doctor to the condition at the moment of trauma.
One biological function which is often triggered upon expiration of a patient is loss of bladder control, resulting in bedwetting. A device for immediately detecting the presence of moisture could discern such trauma immediately and provide an appropriate alarm. Further benefits of alerting an attending nurse that the patient has wet the bed are to prevent discomfort to the patient and promote sanitary conditions.
Various devices have earlier been disclosed for detecting the presence of urine. Numerous devices have been designed to be worn adjacent the body within undergarments or layered therewithin. Generally the detection device is comprised of a multiplicity of electrically conductive surfaces separated by an absorbent non-conductive material. Upon urination, the absorbent material soaks up the electrically conductive urine, thereby completing an electrical circuit which in turn activates an alarm device. However, such moisture monitors are not easily adaptable to use in bed coverings where a substantially flat configuration is required.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a bed covering device having moisture detection means.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device of the aforesaid nature which will further monitor movement of a person upon the surface of a bed.
It is another object of this invention to provide a bed covering device of the aforesaid nature of simple, durable construction amenable to low cost manufacture.
These objects and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description.